Something really sad and disturbing happened since my last newsletter. I don't know how many of my readers knew of Stephen Lindhorst. He was a former eBay
employee and eBay Education Specialist and author of several books about selling on eBay. Although we were sort of competitors, after meeting him at eBay
Live in Boston in 2007, we started working on some joint projects and I promoted a few of his books on Multichannel Surfer to my readers. My impression was
that Steve was really smart and a super nice guy.

Well that all went away last week when I read the following article. I know that in our country we are all presumed innocent until convicted, but the
alleged evidence in this case is pretty compelling.

"Steven Lindhorst was arrested after some unknown family member who lives with he and his wife Wendy Lindhorst reported to police that Steve had child
pornography on his work computer. Detectives allegedly found numerous images and videos of suspected child porn on that computer. A second search at
Lindhorst's home allegedly uncovered a second computer hard drive that contained 24,000 images and 200 videos, most of which allegedly showed pubescent
children engaging in sex acts, and some of which reportedly appeared to have been made by Lindhorst himself.

Steve M. Lindhorst, age 51, was arrested on suspicion of felony charges of a lewd act with a child under the age of 14, possession of child pornography,
possession of explicit child pornography, and the posting of intimate photos of another without their consent, a misdemeanor. Investigators reportedly have
identified and contacted 14 local victims. As last reported, Lindhorst had not yet been released on $160,000.00 bail.

I guess the lesson here is that no matter how nice and engaging someone is -you just never know what is in someone's heart.

If you sell on Amazon from overseas here is an email from one of my readers who does this with some really good advice for current or folks who want to
start selling on Amazon USA from a foreign country:

Dear Mr. McGrath,

I am Amazon FBA Coaching Student in Jim Cockrum´s Coaching Program (Andrew Milburn is my coach) based in Germany. I run two FBA accounts, one in the
US and one in Europe including all from Amazon supported countries.

I have read your great Issue of the Amazon Seller News, specially the chapter about
Incorporation.

I can contribute with my own experience, as I am already incorporated and run my own LLC since 2013 (originally created for Real Estate Business, now used
for Amazon FBA).

Their services include the creation of an US Bank Account with Credit Card (very useful, e.g. for Kohl's that does not accept my German Card), US Address,
EIN Number and CPA help for legal and tax issues. The support via Skype is excellent.

I think without that service I would not have been able to start my US Business. So if you are looking to similar services as the one you mentioned in your
Newsletter (great content, by the way!).

I think this may be useful information for foreign FBA Sellers like myself. I am not associated with that company, just my personal opinion.

Thanks a lot for your great content and hope to see you in one US Event in the future, I would love to attend a trade show in the US as well. For the
moment, I will travel to Hong Kong end of April (HKTDC Hong Kong Gifts & Premium Fair) and hope to have very interesting sourcing activities!

Best regards and keep up the good work support fellow sellers!

Sergio L

If you are trying to get approval to sell in the clothing, jewelry or watches
category on Amazon you know how difficult the process can be. Jessica Larrew
is now offering a service to help you and she is offering a coupon for my readers:

Use the coupon below to take $200 OFF of the
Clothing Approval Assistance!
This is only available for the first 100 people, so make sure to take action today!

Just a reminder that
The Complete eBay Marketing System
has been updated. To celebrate that I'm offering free US shipping through the
end of March. (a $10 savings) You've got a few more days to take advantage of this deal.

Last item - If you sell any product containing chocolate in Amazon FBA, don't forget the last date to remove them is May 1st. If they are still
there after that date Amazon will destroy them.

In a recent presentation I gave on private labeling, I pointed out that there are two ways to private label: Formal and Informal.

Formal private labeling is when you apply for, and get, a trademark for your brand and register your trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
This allows you to use the ® mark next to your private label name.

Informal private labeling is when you just come up with a brand name and start using it, but you do not trademark or register it.

It might surprise you but there is no law, or Amazon policy, that says that a brand has to be trademarked and registered. But, of course, the downside to
this is, without trademark protection your brand cannot be protected.

However, interestingly, I have two informal brands (one of them is in the TM application process) that are not registered -and although I have been using
them on eBay and Amazon for over two years, I have only had two persons try and poach on my listing. And, when I emailed them and said this was my brand,
one of them ignored me and the other pulled his listing.

Not everyone knows that if you are a brand holder you can register your brand with Amazon, which gives you some protection from poachers. What I wondered
was can I do this with an informal brand or would it have to be trademarked? So I asked Amazon and got a surprising answer.

If you are doing, or thinking about doing, any private labeling, be sure and read this response very carefully. Note - to see the links Amazon refers to,
you need to first be logged into Seller Central. I didn't hyperlink these links so you will need to copy paste them into the URL bar once you are logged
in.

Here is the response from Amazon:

Greetings Skip!

Thank you for writing to Amazon Seller Support! My name is Rosh and I am glad to help you out!

I understand that you would like to know whether you can still register under the Amazon Brand registry program even though you don't have a trade mark
brand name. I will surely provide you with more clarity in this matter.

Yes, you may go ahead with the Amazon brand registry process to get approval in the same, since you are the manufacturer of your product. The Amazon Brand
Registry is a program for sellers who manufacture and/or sell their own products. The program's goal is to make it easier for sellers with their own brands
to manage those brands and list their products on Amazon.

* Enrollment assigns a Global Catalog Identifier (GCID) to your products, which can help reduce matching errors to similar products in our catalog.

* Registering your brand can also allow you to list your products without standard product identifiers, such as UPCs and EANs if you use inventory files or
XML to upload your products.

For products that you manufacture or represent as your own brands, consider applying to the Amazon Brand Registry. The registry assigns a Global Catalog ID
(GCID) to each of your products, as an alternative to a UPC or other standard product ID.

Please be advised that applying for Brand registry will allow you to list your products without standard product identifiers, such as UPCs and EANs. This
will further solve your problem.

To apply to the Amazon Brand Registry:

1. Complete the online application and select your key attributes.

2. Participate in a phone or e-mail interview with an Amazon representative, if Amazon deems necessary.

3. Once you are enrolled, begin listing your products. Your products will automatically be assigned a unique product ID called the Global Catalog
Identifier (GCID).

This is a guest article by Karon Thackston. Karon is offering a special deal
for my readers of 20% off of her book,
Amazon Advantage -
Product listing strategies to boost your sales. Just use the special
coupon at checkout - SKIP20. I have been using Karon's advice for almost a
year now and I can tell you without hesitation, it has improved my sales.

Did you know that?

Amazon has an extensive list of do's and don'ts when it comes to creating product listings?

Amazon does not apply the same restrictions to every category?

Amazon provides
Style Guides
(also called Inventory Templates) that outline the specifics of what you can and can't do when writing titles, bullets/features and product
description copy? (And many other restrictions.)

Many sellers are breaking the rules without knowing it?

According to Amazon, these chronic violations have caused the e-commerce giant to roll out some serious changes.

I've had several conversations with Seller Support over the last four months or so about this topic, including a talk with a representative from the
Leadership Team. She mentioned that they have been aware of these types of listings for quite some time and were working on a way of helping sellers be
more aware of and compel them to work within the listing criteria. No easy task considering the volume of information available and the fact that not all
of it is consistent.

Amazon's Contradiction & Confusion

Here's just how confusing Amazon's system can be. The maximum title character count you'll find in any of the Style Guides for any category is 150
(consumer electronics). However, the actual Product Name field in Add A Product has a small note that tells you the maximum is 250 characters. However, the
field itself will hold much more than that. So, Amazon says one thing and does another in many cases. No wonder so many sellers are in violation without
knowing it!

Regardless of what the website says, if Amazon contacts you because they have deactivated your listing, they will hold you accountable to whatever is
stated in the Style Guide or their most current policy change.

Home Category Call-Out

The first category to be reined in is the one that Amazon identified as having the most listings in violation: Home. Starting gradually a few months ago,
reports from our clients (and the Facebook groups we belong to) began to roll in.

Amazon had implemented forced character limits for titles and bullets/features in the Kitchen sub-category. As the weeks went on, more were added to the
list. Not everyone is seeing these at the moment, but I've been told by Amazon that this will be a category-wide change to take place over time.

So far we have heard accounts of two situations: First, sellers have been notified that existing listings have been deactivated until changes were made.
Second, new listings have encountered forced character limits in the Add A Product section of Seller Central and the inventory upload.

Since those original reports, I've heard about pretty much every home sub-category being affected, including:

Pets

Lawn & Garden

Home

Patio

Dining

I have also seen this expanding out into Crafts and certain select Sporting Goods sub-cats.

Where Do We Stand Now?

As it stands right now, for the Home & Garden category (and all sub-categories under it), the following character counts apply:

Title/Product Name:
100 maximum (stated in the Style Guide)

Bullets/Features:
156 maximum (stated in the Style Guide, but the guide also says "recommended maximum of 80 characters").

Short Copy Can Be Compelling

Since Amazon has put their foot down on exceptionally long titles and bullets, where does that leave you? Short copy doesn't have to be boring. Let's take
a look at some practical tips and tricks you can use when whittling down your longer listings.

Here's an actual example from one of
Skip McGrath's
listings. Here's one way we can tweak it to
comply with the new character counts while still being compelling.

This equals 228 characters. (Yes, spaces count.) While it is an informative title, I wouldn't necessarily call it "enticing." It doesn't take much to
capture attention. Sometimes just a word or two can catch the eye of shoppers and sway them to click on your product.

The terms "professional-quality" and "advanced" let Amazon visitors know that this isn't some cheapo knife set, but one that is of high value. I chose to
skip the types of knives included because they can see those from the images. You can't see professional quality or that they have ceramic blades from a
picture.

The types of knives and their sizes can easily be put into the Search Terms fields. The details can go into the bullet points and description sections.

Lifetime Replacement Guarantee: If any of the pieces of your set ever fail, please return them for an immediate replacement … forever.

Personally, I like to give a teaser/benefit at the front of bullets. So, instead of "Third Generation Ceramic technology - Advanced Zirconium Ceramic
Blades," which is strictly a feature, I changed it to immediately connect with home cooks with a benefit:

What The Pros Use: Zirconium ceramic is the blade of choice for chefs. Now you can have the same advanced 3rd generation technology for your
home kitchen.

I did the same with the rest of the bullets except for the list of items included.

If you give some thought to what the target customer really wants and make that the focal point of your bullets and title, you don't have to use a lot of
words to entice and attract buyers.

This is a guest article by Appah Prince from a company called Veeqo. Veeqo is an inventory management system that allows you to sync your inventory in real
time between Amazon, eBay, Magento, Shopify & WooCommerce and prevents over selling.

Here is Appah's article:

There 3 main reasons why Amazon might remove a seller's privileges. We're going to take a look at these reasons and provide advice on how you can avoid
making the mistakes, which may lead to a suspension of your Amazon account.

The seller has not met Amazon's performance standards

When you first start out selling on Amazon, there are certain benchmarks you have to meet. If you are not meeting these, and if you constantly get poor
buyer feedback scores and poor sales performance metrics, there's a chance Amazon could remove your seller privileges.

Amazon takes your performance as a seller into account and will send you a warning if your performance and metrics are falling low. You will be given an
opportunity to improve these figures, so you should take action as soon as you are notified of your failure.

You should evaluate your selling practices on a regular basis to ensure that you are not on the road to buyer dissatisfaction.

Amazon states that:

All sellers should be working toward achieving and maintaining a level of customer service that meets the following seller performance targets:

Order defect rate: < 1%

Pre-fulfilment cancel rate: < 2.5%

Late shipment rate: < 4%

Failure to meet these targets may result in the removal of your selling privileges.

If you are lagging in any of these departments, you need to identify the cause and take measures to improve yourself as a seller. Do your packages
regularly arrive after the date you said they'd be there? If not, you could improve shipping process by using Fulfilment by Amazon. Do your orders have a
high defect rate? Do you often find yourself out of stock for popular products? A good place to start is taking a look at how you manage your inventory.
Using an inventory management tool could help you, especially if you have a large
amount of stock.

You could also look at tools like Feedback Five, which help you prompt your customers so that they are
more likely to give you feedback and improve your seller rating.

Amazon's selling policies may have been violated

If you have not familiarised yourself with Amazon's selling policies, it is possible that you could break the rules without even noticing. Amazon states
that you must:

Honor your commitment to buy or sell.

Maintain current account information.

If we have removed your selling privileges, you may not open a new selling account.

Do not misrepresent yourself.

Here is a breakdown of some of Amazon's policies and how to avoid breaking them. For a full list of Amazon's policies and agreements, follow this
link
or go to
Amazon Seller Central.

Unauthorized and improper business names
- Business names must accurately identify the seller; can't be misleading; and must have the right to use it. It also cannot contain an email suffix such
as .com, .net, .biz

Inappropriate email communications
- Communications with buyers must be courteous, relevant and appropriate. Unsolicited email communications with other users, other than as necessary for
order fulfilment and related customer service, and emails containing marketing communications are not allowed.

Direct email addresses
- You cannot communicate with buyers and other sellers via your own email, you must use Amazon's Buyer Seller Messaging Service

Operating multiple Seller Central accounts
- Amazon will allow you to have 2 accounts, but only for legitimate business reasons, and second accounts must be approved. To be considered for approval
you must:

Have an account in good standing with excellent Customer Metrics

Have a separate e-mail address and bank account for the new account

Not intend to sell the same products in both accounts

Misuse of the Amazon selling platform -
Don't abuse the system in excessive or unreasonable way, because uploading an excessive amount of data repeatedly can create a disproportionate load on the
platform and impair the ability of other sellers to easily access and use the platform

Misuse of ratings and feedback or reviews
- Don't attempt to manipulate ratings, reviews or feedback. Don't offer payment for removal of negative reviews or feedback, and don't post feedback or
reviews to your own account.

Misuse of the Amazon.com A-to-z Guarantee
- Sellers who have an excessive number or dollar amount of A-to-z Guarantee claims are subject to termination, so don't misuse the A-to-Z guarantee.

You might be selling restricted items

Amazon restricts a certain number of products for varying reasons, for example products that are easily counterfeited or sold exclusively elsewhere.

Here is where we reach a sort of grey area as some items are completely prohibited, for example tobacco products, but some are restricted, meaning you
could need pre-approval for example all alcohol is prohibited except wine, which can be sold by pre-approved seller, and clothes and jewellery items need
to be pre-approved.

Additionally, some product types within allowed categories are restricted, which could mean that the type of item is permitted (e.g. makeup and cosmetics),
but certain brands of that product are not (like Chanel, Lancôme and MAC), and only official sellers are allowed to list these items. You can find a
full list of Amazon restricted products
here,
on Amazon. The best way to avoid selling restricted products is to familiarize yourself with Amazon's policies.

Amazon will usually warn you if they detect you attempting to sell a restricted item, and they will give you time to remove your listing. If you re-list
that item, Amazon may suspend your account, and recovering it may be difficult, so don't ignore Amazon's warnings and make sure you respond to these
appropriately, by removing any restricted products.

(Note: If you have trouble accessing some of the links in the article, try logging into Seller central first).

Well it's that time of year again when eBay makes their major policy announcements. This year is not too bad. One thing I noticed is that eBay seems to
want to focus more on the auction format than in the past when they were really pushing fixed price. Maybe the new management is getting that old time
religion.

Fees seem to change every Spring --and this year is no exception. In this announcement some fees are going up, some going down and some going away - so on
balance its not too bad.

Let me just print the announcement and then I will give you my comments after each item in italics.

Highlights

Starting May 1:

Unlimited insertion fee credits for auction-style listings that end in a sale.
As an incentive for using the auction-style format successfully, sellers will be credited for the insertion fee on auction-style listings when that
item sells (See details).

The key here is the last few words "when that item sells." So it's not free for items that don't sell, but you still get one free relisting.

Listing duration and feature fee updates

The 10-day duration on auction-style listings will no longer have an added feature fee. Sellers can maximize visibility and enjoy our
longest auction-style duration.

Sellers who choose 1- or 3-day auction-style listing durations will be charged a $1 special duration feature fee per listing. Charging this
fee will help discourage the use of shorter durations where they are least successful.

This actually makes some sense. Very short auctions tend not to work well -although I did use them the last few selling days before Christmas when they
do. The people who typically use 1 or 3 day auctions are ticket sellers and their tickets sell for enough money that the $1 fee isn't that big a deal.

The feature fee for Reserve Price will increase to the greater of $3, or 2%
of the reserve price (minimum price that must be met for your item to sell), with a cap of $100. Consider using fixed price with a Best Offer
option if you know the market value of your item, but may be willing to accept a lower price.

As someone who uses reserves a lot, I am not too fond of this one. However, the items I tend to use reserves on are typically quite
expensive so the extra dollar won't kill me.

Adjustments to monthly allotment and insertion fees.
To complement the unlimited insertion fee credits on auction-style listings that end in a sale†, we're adjusting the monthly
allotments of free listings*-zero insertion fees-for all sellers.

This takes some of the sting out of the free listings that are only free when an item sells.

All media category items
listed in the fixed price format will now have the same insertion fee as other category listings.

For sellers with an eBay Stores subscription, the monthly allotments of free listings* will now be dedicated to fixed price listings
, and, for listings in
Collectibles categories, sellers
will receive 100 additional free auction-style listings* per month.

Again not that big a change

eBay Stores Subscription Level

Basic

Premium

Anchor

Fixed price monthly listing allotment

150

500

2,500

Auction style monthly listing allotment for Collectibles only

100

100

100

Insertion fee after monthly allotment (Exclusions apply)

Auction-style (credited to you for successful listings)

$0.25

$0.15

$0.10

Fixed price

$0.20

$0.10

$0.05

For sellers without an eBay Stores subscription, it's still free to list.

Sellers without a subscription will receive 20 free listings* per month, which can be used to create auction-style or fixed price listings.

For listings in the Collectibles
categories, sellers will receive an additional 20 free auction-style listings* per month.

Sellers will be credited for the insertion fee on auction-style listings when that item sells†.

This is down from the previous number -so not so great, unless you sell collectibles.

Final value fee cap introduced for listings in heavy equipment for eBay Stores subscribers: eBay Stores subscribers who sell in
the Heavy Equipment, Concession Trailers & Carts, Imaging & Aesthetics Equipment, and Commercial Printing Presses categories will benefit from a
final value fee cap of $250, where previously there was not a cap at all.

This is good news for sellers of these items - It is interesting but the Business and Industrial category is one of the more successful categories on
eBay and has not lost as much in sales as the other categories.

Some advice on these changes:

To increase the likelihood of selling your item in auctions, use auction-style listings for niche products or items with high buyer demand. Use fixed price
listings when you can list your item at a set price so that buyers can purchase it right away. In general, fixed price is best for items that have a clear
market value and you know the price wanted, whereas auction is best for items whose value may fluctuate, when price is unknown, or when there is intense
buyer demand for a limited item.

Determine if an eBay Stores subscription will save you more in fees, especially with consideration to reduced final value fees. Subscriptions start AT
$15.95 a month for a Basic Store.
Here is a link to eBay store fees and services.

Choose longer durations: The longer a listing appears on the site, the more opportunities it has to be found by buyers: 7- or 10-day for auction-style-now
with no feature fee-and Good 'Til Cancelled for fixed price listings. I have been using ten-day auctions for a long time and they do tend to work better.
Now I don't have to pay the extra fee so that is good.

Remember many of these websites do not show wholesale pricing or ordering wholesale information. To get this info -or access to the protected part of the
site, use the contact us form and send a polite email requesting wholesale information.

Mika Accessories
sells a very nice line of jewelry and women's fashion accessories. Their website isn't very good, but you can email them
Kenny@mikaacc.com for information.

The McStevens Wholesale Company
sells a nice line of gourmet food gifts. You need a code and password to
access the website. Code is mcstevens and the password is bmr124. Best of all
their minimum wholesale order is only $100.

You Can Hide It
sells a line of liquor flasks that look like ordinary objects such as an ice pack, hair spray, bug spray and so on to help folks sneak liquor into concerts
and ball games.

Picnic Time
sells a nice line of picnic sets and suppliers and their sister company Legacy sells a beautiful line of table serve ware.

Old Modern Handicrafts
sells a beautiful line of models of vintage ships, sailboats, cars and runabouts. They also carry a nice line of globes that open up to become bars, chess
sets or poker sets as well as reproduction old nautical instruments.

New Ray USA
is a toy company that specializes in die cast metal toys, trucks, cars, trains and so on.

Red Cup Living
sells a nice line of reusable (washable) red cups, mugs and beer steins.

Please Note:
Some of the products and
services mentioned in this website, in articles, banner ads and
newsletters and blog posts are for products and services for which I
earn a referral fee or commission. We always evaluate anything we
recommend very carefully and each year we turn down literally dozens
of opportunities to recommend products or services where we can earn
a commission. Even though we earn a fee on some of our
recommendations, we only recommend products and services that we
feel will deliver good value and with rare exceptions, they all come
with a money back guarantee.